


Carve Your Name Into My Arm

by CyanideBreathmint



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Time, Glove Kink, Kylo Ren's belated sexual awakening, Kylux - Freeform, M/M, Mention of Brendol Hux, Post-TLJ, Ren is curious, big whammy at the end, for now, hux has a tramp stamp, improper use of First Order medical resources, note he says she betrayed him he never says he killed her, oddly sweet, sometimes beautiful things come from shitposts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 16:09:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15076826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyanideBreathmint/pseuds/CyanideBreathmint
Summary: Kylo Ren's senses change subtly after Snoke dies — as though the late Supreme Leader had been shackling Ren's command of the Force. With his new acuity he senses something about General Hux, something that he had never noticed before, and asks him about it. Hux shows him. And then Hux tells him.Title stolen from Placebo's Every You Every Me, no self-harm actually occurs in this fic.





	Carve Your Name Into My Arm

Kylo Ren’s ascension as Supreme Leader had been greeted with nothing more than a small murmur. The oppressed populace of First Order space had simply accepted one tyrant in place of another. Much the same went for the officers and NCOs of the military. They continued to receive orders from their superior officers, relayed to them down the chain of command that led back to General Armitage Hux, and from Hux to Kylo Ren. There was no formal crowning ceremony, no pageantry and no celebration or mourning. There was only the hushed silence of a frightened child cringing, waiting for the swing of the fist, the descending blow.

Some things had changed, however, and Kylo Ren pondered those things while he listened to another one of General Hux’s briefings. In recent days his senses in the Force had sharpened, become more acute. It wasn’t as though he had become vastly more powerful, but rather, that he could use it more delicately. As though padded mittens had been removed from his hands, as though a holocamera's lenses were finally able to focus on the foreground of an image

This new sensitivity wasn’t something he had expected. A dull clumsiness had weighted leaden over him his whole life and informed his use of the Force. Brute force was simply easier than a careful nudge. But now things were different. He had practiced, in the privacy of his quarters, with a calligraphy brush, first by hand, and then by the Force, and the results were almost identical. Almost, because it had been too long since he had last held a brush, and he had dragged his hand in the drying ink once or twice. 

This control — had he always had it? Had Snoke simply handicapped him the whole time, just to drive him to frustration? To control him? Ren did not know. Snoke was dead, and he took his motivations with him, out the other side of an airlock upon the crippled _Supremacy,_ after Crait. After Ren’s uncle had cheated him of his victory. Luke had paid for that interference with his life — Ren sensed his death afterwards, a dying echo reverberating as though someone had accidentally brushed against the strings of a hallikset. _I’m almost free,_ he thought. _My past is almost dead._

General Hux made a soft, annoyed sound then, and Ren realized that he had let his thoughts wander again. 

“Supreme Leader, I —“ Hux, slender, almost delicate, utterly breakable save for his importance to the First Order… and his strength of will. It shone like brushed steel in Ren’s unsight, ductile, malleable perhaps, but always returning to its former shape once the stresses had gone. There was something different about Hux, something that Ren had not had the acuity to identify and articulate until now. 

“General,” Ren said, silencing him with a sharp gesture. “There’s a knot of tension in your back. I can feel it.” And feel it he had, a taut buzz of emotional pain.

Ren watched Hux take a sharp breath, tasted in Hux’s mind the initial surprise at the change of topic, saw it sour into suspicion, suspicion and aggravation. And why not? They did not trust each other. They had not even when Snoke had been around to punish them for infighting, and they would not now. 

“With due respect,” Hux said, a faint ironic pause just to reinforce that this was just a figure of speech, a mouthing of the formula, “Supreme Leader, my health is none of your business.” 

Ren thought up so many answers to that, thought of how easy Hux’s bones would be to break with a swat of his hand, a brush of the Force. But he did not do any such thing. He was far too intrigued to destroy the subject of his curiosity before he found the answers to what puzzled him. 

“I don’t mean physical tension, General,” Ren said, holding his gaze, “I sense old ghosts of humiliation and rage. Shame. Despair.” There it was so subtly and delicately overlapping Hux’s own emotions, like a film of lacquer over polished wood. “What was their name?” A fading touch of fire, the smell of burning meat. Ashes.

Hux held himself very still, parade-straight in a posture that Ren recognized, a reflex from Hux’s cadet days, as though absolute correctness would insulate and protect him from abuse. It hadn’t, and would not, but there it was anyway. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Hux said. Ren could feel him controlling his breathing, ordering his thoughts, hiding a sudden flush of emotion behind cold discipline instead. 

“Don’t play stupid, General.” Ren rose from his temporary throne — just one of the chairs at his table turned so he could watch Hux during the briefing. “You’ve got the ashes of some person embedded in your hide. Inked, even.” He felt Hux fight a flinch as he ran a gloved thumb lightly, gently along his jawline, scented his fear as he tipped Hux’s chin up so their eyes would meet. “It must have been a triumph you wanted to remember.” 

“No,” Hux said, rage and pain burning in his gaze, breaking free of his discipline at last. “It was a betrayal I never want to forget.” Hux fought a tremor under Ren’s touch, his fear exquisite, and underneath a bone-deep loneliness that Ren had never really paid attention to before. _How long has it been since someone — not a sycophant, but an equal, how long has it been since Hux was last touched like this?_

_Far too long,_ Ren sensed and thought. He pulled his hand away, let Hux’s chin drop, and savored the rush of relief in the wake of the fear, felt a faint amusement and heartache alike at how easy Hux was to push around. Awakening in Ren was something new too, a tension low in the pit of his belly, something that ached sweetly in his loins. _Huh,_ Ren thought as Hux made a small sound in his throat, an utterance of surprise and faint discomfort alike. _So that’s something else that Snoke cut off from me._

Ren had never really felt the need for physical intimacy, not in all the years of his life. He had simply assumed it was yet another thing wrong with him, but now lust roared in his ears like a freshet, his blood flowing swift like water approaching a cliff. He pressed his closed lips softly against Hux’s, felt a pair of arms closing around his waist. That was not resistance, nor was it capitulation. No, it was a silent, unspoken consent, one that Ren accepted when Hux dipped his head in to kiss him again. 

Hux was fierce against Ren’s own inexperience, his mouth seeking, devouring as their breath intermingled, their lips touching again and again, need against need. “You’re not going to hurt me,” Hux panted as they pulled briefly apart to catch their breath. It was a statement more than a question.

Those words, breathed hotly against Ren’s ear, made him shudder in a wave of intense arousal. What if Hux wanted to be hurt? He could feel those thoughts hot against the porcelain cold of Hux’s skull, all that control against raw desire. “No,” Ren managed to whisper, gasped as Hux ground his hips against his through all their maddening layers of clothing. “Not unless you want me to.” 

“No,” Hux murmured, “no. You wouldn’t know how to, from how clumsily you kiss. How to do it correctly, in any case.” Another burning touch of Hux’s mouth against his cheek, against his narrow jaw, and he was tipping his head back like a sacrifice upon an altar. 

“Teach me,” Ren breathed against Hux’s greedy mouth, “show me.” 

Hux tugged gently at Ren’s waist, as though they were dancing, and turned him around, turned with him. And then he was crowding Ren gently towards the narrow bed in his quarters, its austere frame with a single blanket folded over a hard mattress. There would be barely any room for the both of them lying side by side, Ren thought, but Hux was slender as a sapling under that uniform of his. There was a heavy rustle of cloth as Hux shrugged his greatcoat off, left it puddled on the floor behind him as he put his hands on Ren’s shoulders, forced him gently to sit down. 

“Get undressed,” Hux said, his voice soft, personal. “I don’t know how to work the fastenings on your armor.” 

Ren reached down to undo the clasps, paused and lifted his chin to look Hux in the eye. “Show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.” 

“We’re not children here, Supreme Leader, playing games of doctor,” Hux said, but he reached down to his belt, unbuckled it and tossed it, holstered blaster and all, onto the black shape of the greatcoat lying on the floor. He stripped with a surprising lack of self-consciousness. _Academy showers, right,_ Ren thought, and then he could not think as Hux dropped his uniform jacket and tugged at the hem of his undershirt, pulled it over his head to expose the pale skin of his chest and belly. 

“Do you like what you see here, Supreme Leader?” Hux asked almost coyly, his eyes coldly amused at the effect he was having on Ren. Ren sensed a satisfaction there, a certainty underlying a curiosity and desire that mirrored his own. 

“There isn’t much to see, General,” Ren said, and then stopped as he saw Hux’s eyes harden minutely. “I’ve seen a lot of bare chests,” he continued, tasting Hux’s anxiety, and his anger at the fear, felt it lurking like a lump in the back of his mind. “This isn’t anything new.” 

“I suppose not,” Hux said, relaxing again. He had something strapped to the inside of his right forearm — a sheath, it looked like, for a dagger. _How very vicious of you,_ Ren thought but did not say, only pressed his mouth to Hux’s lean belly, grinned mentally at the gasp he heard. 

“You’re not going to stab me with that, are you?” Ren murmured against Hux’s skin, savoring the salty bite of his sweat, the faint musk of his scent intermingled with the spicy resinous notes of his cologne. 

“I certainly hope you’re talking about the dagger I have strapped to my arm,” Hux laughed facetiously, and then he was running his gloved fingers through Ren’s unruly hair, closing his fist to tug Ren’s gaze upwards again. “You haven’t undressed. It’s your turn now.” 

At that Ren pulled away from Hux to get some room, and Hux let him go, stood watching as Ren removed the armored tunic he wore before he peeled off his own undershirt. Pride flared in his chest as he saw Hux’s pupils widen at the sight of his skin, at the way those cold green eyes lingered appreciatively on the muscles of his chest and the high waistband of his trousers. “I hope you like what you see here.” 

“I do,” Hux breathed, and then he shook his head briefly as though remembering something. “Help me with my boots,” he said. Ren stood up and stepped aside, biting his lip at the friction of his cock against the fly of his trousers — this tingling heat going straight to his balls, pressure building within him, almost unbearable. 

Ren took Hux’s leg between his and then made a hoarse, incoherent sound as Hux raised his knee gently to press up against his groin, rutted instinctively against him with a sudden shiver. “It feels good, doesn’t it?” Hux asked him, and Ren tugged clumsily at Hux’s boot, fingers closing around the ankle as he pulled it off. He repeated the process for Hux’s other leg, and then felt Hux stand up behind him. Slender arms slid around his waist, gloved hands caressing gently at his chest and belly as Hux ground softly against him, pressing the heat of his cock against Ren’s ass. “Do you like this?” 

“Yes,” Ren breathed. It was becoming too much, all this want and sensation and the constant heat of Hux’s skin against him, breath against the back of his neck and the stream of thoughts running in Hux’s mind —  _I need him, I want him, how far will he let me go?_ There was no doubt some self-interest in Hux’s decision to participate, a cold calculation always in his thoughts, but lying over it was true desire, lust and hunger. _Does he even know how beautiful he is?_

“No,” Ren said hoarsely, forgetting himself as Hux began to work at the fly of his trousers, “nobody ever told me that.” Hux’s fingers stopped moving, and Ren froze suddenly as he realized what he had just done.

He expected Hux to let go of him, to step away and put his clothes back on, but he didn’t. Instead Hux turned Ren gently around and paused to look him in the eye, his gaze lingering on the bones of Ren’s face. 

“You are quite beautiful, you know,” Hux said softly, “and it pleases me to be the first to tell you this.” 

“Even with the scars?” Ren asked him, suddenly self conscious, himself.

“Even so. I always thought it was ridiculous how you went around masked all the time, but —“ Hux paused, ran a fingertip along Ren’s cheekbone, “then it makes me one of the few people to have seen you as yourself, and that’s special.” He tugged Ren’s face down to him, silenced him with another kiss, this one slow and careful, exploratory. Ren shivered against Hux’s touch, groaned low against his mouth as Hux palmed the sensitive underside of his cock through his trousers and began to rub slowly and insistently. 

Ren gasped at the blaze of sensation, sucked in a desperate breath as a jolt of pleasure burst through his nerves, dizzying, overwhelming. “Just like that,” Hux whispered, not taking his hand away, “there you go,” and that tipped him over the edge entirely to come messily in his pants, his semen hot and sticky, cooling in the fabric of his underwear.

“I’m sorry,” Ren managed to breathe afterwards, once he had regained the ability to speak. He was leaning heavily into Hux now, his fingertips and toes still buzzing with endorphins. A sweet relief lapped at his loins, spreading hot up his spine and down the backs of his thighs.

“Don’t be,” Hux said. “I wanted to take the edge off so you wouldn’t come in just two seconds.”

“But I did,” Ren said, puzzled at the look of satisfaction he saw in Hux’s face. This couldn’t be all — he knew enough about sex and biology to know it wasn’t. 

“Yes, you’ll last longer in about, oh, twenty minutes.” Hux grinned cold and wicked as he unfastened his jodhpurs, let them slip to the floor before he stepped out of his standard-issue underwear, and Ren gasped at the sight of him naked, his cock fully erect, its head dark with blood. The wiry curl of Hux’s pubic hair was red, too, a shade or two darker than the hair on his head, and Ren ran his fingers through it, forgetting his own embarrassment. “Come on,” Hux murmured, and then he was helping Ren unfasten his boots, tugging his sticky garments off his skin. 

Ren caught a glimpse of the tattoo low on Hux’s back as they fell into bed one after the other, where it would lie under the waistband of his uniform jodhpurs, hidden to most of the world. _And now he lets me see this. Like I let him see my face,_ he thought. He didn’t see enough to get any detail, was too distracted to try when Hux started kissing him again. 

“Sithspit, Ren,” Hux breathed, in between kisses, “you have got to get a softer mattress.” Ren laughed against Hux’s mouth, found his hands closing around Hux’s narrow hips. 

“Should I take the gloves off?” Ren asked as his hands settled low on Hux’s back. He might be able to feel the tattoo on Hux’s back, drag his fingertips along its low relief of scar tissue, if he took them off. 

“Yes, unless you want them ruined later,” Hux said with a soft sigh of pleasure as Ren started to stroke him gently, running his hand firmly down his spine. It was easier to do this if he didn’t focus on Hux’s thoughts, just his feelings and urges. _Like this,_ he heard, lightened his touch in response. Ren took his hands off Hux one at a time, biting down on the fingertips of the gloves to pull them off impatiently. 

Hux’s skin was smooth — not delicate, no, he was tougher than that, but he was so sleek, and there it was, under Ren’s fingertips. “I can feel those lines on your back,” he murmured against Hux’s ear, inhaled the fragrant salt of his sweat, “the tattoo. Like ancient carvings almost gone. Is that why you had it inked there? So your lovers could read it with their touch and never abandon you again?”

“No,” Hux said, laughed bitterly, but Ren knew that the bitterness was not aimed in his direction. Not over this question, anyway. “It’s there so it’s not easily visible under my uniform, that’s why.” 

“It’s not for me, then, or anyone else,” Ren said. “It’s for you.” He rolled onto his side as Hux shifted to crawl off him, and they lay facing each other. There was a nakedness in this moment that wasn’t just physical or sexual — no, Hux was actually answering Ren’s questions, and not because he was ordered to. 

“I thought it would have been obvious by now,” Hux said, running his hand gently up Ren’s flank. Ren shivered at the kiss of the leather, and then his eyes flickered shut as Hux drew small circles over his nipple with a fingertip. The sensation threatened to take his breath away.

“I don’t know,” Ren said when Hux slowed, when he could fight his way back to thought again. “Some of the most venomous creatures in the galaxy advertise it, a kind of warning to any who would interfere with them. I thought you might be the same.” It was a strange compliment to make, no doubt, but it was sincere all the same. Hux was a very dangerous man.

Hux laughed again, more carefree this time, and he was guiding Ren’s hand to the firm heat of his cock. Ren took hold of him and squeezed gently, began to stroke him. He kept his eyes on Hux's face, reading the little tremors of pleasure, his white teeth buried in the soft pink of his lower lip. “Slowly,” Hux breathed, “more softly. Like how you would touch yourself.” 

Ren slowed to a halt, felt himself blush as heat climbed up his neck to burn on his cheeks. “I hadn’t really thought about anything like this until now.” He could feel it again, the weight and pressure of his own cock as it began to fill with blood again, the heat under his skin.

“Not even once?” Hux asked, propping himself up on a sharp elbow. 

“No,” Ren admitted. It was easier to talk when Hux was lying here naked and vulnerable, where Ren could sense the eddies of his thoughts, and he wondered why he had never tried this before.

Hux shook his head slowly in disbelief. “I know the Jedi were supposed to be celibate, but I didn’t think you’d keep up with it after you left.” Ren sensed a faint amusement in the question, and a vague warmth and concern overlying the base thoughts of Hux’s lust.

“No, I just never could before,” Ren said, answering him seriously. “I think Snoke was blocking something off in my head, cutting me off from my own needs.” 

Hux fell silent for a few seconds, his thoughts opaque to Ren’s heated mind, and then began to guide Ren’s hand up and down the shaft of his cock again. “There you go. Tighter down,” he gasped in approval, “loosen your fingers on the way up.”

“Is that how you like to touch yourself?” Ren asked. He was fully hard again, aroused with an urgency that awed him, now that he understood what skin-hunger was.

“Sometimes,” Hux murmured, “it’s very good like this.” 

“And other times?” Ren asked, genuinely curious. 

“I’m going to need lubricant to show you that. Something slippery.”

Ren didn’t keep anything like that around — it wasn’t as though he had a need for it until now. But there was a tube of bacta he had been using on the half-healed wounds he had taken on Starkiller Base, according to medical advice. He pulled the small metal tube off the headboard of his bed and pushed it into Hux’s hands. “Will this do?”

“Improper use of First Order medical resources. Very naughty, Supreme Leader,” Hux said. His emphasis on the word _naughty_ made Ren’s toes curl under his feet. 

“You’re still wearing your gloves,” Ren said as Hux uncapped the tube of bacta, and he paused before he could squeeze any out onto his palm. 

“I don’t particularly care if I ruin this pair.” Hux said easily. His actions matched his words as he squeezed some onto his palm, rubbed it into the leather, and then squeezed a generous dollop onto his fingers. 

“You’d do that for me?” Ren asked as he found the confidence to tease Hux slightly.

“Not entirely, no,” Hux answered seriously, as though it had been an honest question. “I like the way the leather feels, myself.” 

“So do I,” Ren laughed softly. 

“All right,” Hux said, climbing to his knees to straddle Ren, who lay obligingly on his back. “Watch this.” 

Hux cupped his scrotum in his free hand, spread his knees a little further so Ren could see what he was doing, and then he slid the tip of one gloved, bacta-slick finger up his asshole. He let out a slow, shaky breath as he did so. 

“This feels good?” Ren asked. He felt Hux’s arousal pushing on the edge of his sensorium, its own throb syncopating with their heartbeats, but it seemed strange that it would feel pleasurable.

“It can,” Hux gasped, and then he pulled the first finger out, worked both of his slick fingers in, let his mouth hang open as he pushed them deeper. “You have to know how first.” 

Ren reached down to squeeze briefly on his own cock, shuddered at the sensation, at the sensitivity of his skin now that his cock was fully erect. He ran his hand down, and then up the shaft as Hux had taught him to do, and felt his mouth hanging stupidly open. All these years he had lived blind to his own urges, starved of something as elemental as air, or water, and a fresh burst of rage sizzled quietly within him, between his heart and gut.

“It’s really good, isn’t it?” Hux asked. He had pulled his fingers free of his own ass and was leaning forward to look Ren in the face. Their noses were almost touching, and Ren nodded mutely, shivered as Hux kissed him again. 

“Yes,” Ren said, and then Hux took his wrist and made him stop touching himself. He whined softly in frustration, and then stopped when he saw what Hux was about to do. 

“This feels even better,” Hux promised as he shifted his weight. He took hold of Ren’s cock but did not stroke him, only guided the head of Ren’s cock against the cleft of his ass. “Stars, you’re big. Every part of you is,” Hux groaned softly, and then he began to lower himself onto Ren’s cock. 

Ren wasn’t sure what to expect at first, but the warmth itself of Hux’s flesh felt good, as did the slippery pressure against the sensitive head of his cock. He bucked upwards in mindless reflex, and then felt Hux bearing down on him. There was an exquisite tightness provoking sensations so intense his vision began to blur out, and then a wonderful heat, a texture like sodden velvet against his cock.

“Just like that,” Hux was coaxing him, the strain audible in his voice “give it to me.”

Ren’s mouth was open but he could not speak. His world had narrowed down to the pressure he felt low in his belly, building in his balls and the base of his spine where his tailbone was. He managed a groan, bit down on his own lip, and then shuddered upwards again. Hux was right. This _did_ feel better.

“You feel so good in me,” Hux breathed, and Ren reached up to close his fingers on that narrow waist, tried to hold himself still. 

“What do I do now?” Ren panted, shivered again. It was becoming impossible for him to stay still, untenable, and he trembled with the effort.

“Move,” Hux told him, “just move. Fuck me hard.” Ren felt Hux lift a little off his cock, and he pulled him back down by his sharp, bony hips, rocked up into him hard and clumsily with a virgin’s desperation.

“Yes,” Ren panted, and Hux was moving with and against him, setting a steady rhythm for him to follow. Ren was starving for it, eager as each sweet gliding thrust brought him closer to something he hadn’t known he had been searching for all his life. It was a pleasure so intense it bordered on pain, a sensitivity like fire as he drove himself ever upwards into the perfect home of Hux’s tight ass. 

Ren was beyond words at this point, could only concentrate on each frantic stroke as Hux gasped filthy, incoherent encouragement into his ears, his breathy speech punctuated by the slap of skin against skin. “You like it, don’t you?” Hux whispered desperately, and Ren nodded, closed his eyes and lost himself in touch and smell, in sound, in everything but the jagged thoughts that circled in the darkness behind his eyelids. 

“Hux,” Ren gasped in response, and he opened his eyes to see that Hux had thrown his head back in abandon, that long narrow throat flushed to the chest. The pleasure was building along with the pressure, and Ren was helpless against his own instincts, against the mindless urge to fuck Hux harder and deeper with each stroke. 

“Stars, Ren” Hux managed to say, his voice barely audible over their breathing, “I love riding your dirty great cock, look at you, I can’t believe I’m the first one to ever do this.” 

“You are,” Ren agreed between eager thrusts, “you are, you’re so good.” Hux's praise brought a shiver down his spine. He wanted so badly to do well, to at least repay Hux for this lesson, so intimately taught.

“Good,” Hux gasped, the word turning into a whine deep in his chest as Ren slammed himself deep and hard into the molten core of his body, held perfectly by that sweet tight tension of Hux’s exquisite ass. 

Ren felt the heat building within him, reaching a point where he could hold back no more. “I’m close, Hux,” he whispered, “I’m going to —“ 

“Come for me,” Hux begged him, “come in me. Paint me wet with your spunk.” 

That was it for Ren. He managed one more stroke, another, and then he was grinding himself deep in Hux’s ass as his cock pulsed hotly, as pleasure zinged up his nerves to leave him empty, filled only with static and heat as he spilled himself into Hux for the first time. It was perfect, almost unbearable, the burst of sensation from his cock and balls, from the base of his spine, and in it a vast stellar silence, a peace that had eluded Ren until now.

Hux was not done yet, though. He held himself still against Ren’s still-firm cock and guided his right hand roughly down to his own fine prick, squeezed Ren’s fingers closed. Ren began jacking Hux off fast and hard, and he hissed against the overstimulation as Hux tensed yet again around his cock.

“Don’t stop,” Hux begged, his voice breaking from sheer need, “Kylo, don’t — I’m going to — I’m _coming._ ” Hux’s come splashed hot on Ren’s chest and belly, a stray drop hitting his lip, and Ren licked instinctively at it, tasted the bleach and salt of Hux’s spunk. Hux sat very still, trembling around Ren’s softening cock for a tiny eternity, and then he lifted himself off and let himself fall onto his side beside Ren, panting and gulping for air. 

Neither of them moved for some time afterwards, despite the sweat drying clammy on their skin. Ren had kicked the blanket off the foot of the bed in his frenzy, and he lacked the energy and willpower to summon it to his grasp. No, it was good just to lie here and listen to Hux’s breathing slow, watch the lines of his back slacken into sheer relaxation as the moments passed. A warm lassitude filled Ren's veins, as though he were an addict shot full of painkillers and euphorics.

Ren could see Hux’s tattoo now, as they lay spoon-wise, but not touching — both too overheated to consider it — and he ran a fingertip across the line low on Hux’s back, traced the letters arranged down it. 

“What does it say?” Ren asked after a minute of silence, when he was sure he could speak again. “It’s not in Aurebesh.” 

Hux did not roll over to answer Ren, only shuffled himself backwards to press his shoulder blades against Ren’s broad chest. “It’s old Arkanian script,” Hux murmured, barely audible to Ren. “You can still find it carved into standing stones all over the planet.”

“Like monuments?” Ren asked him, gleaning a tiny flash of gray sky and rain, of green grass and clean cold air and ancient rocks covered in moss and lichen from the loose drift of his thoughts. The memories were distant, fuzzy, as though Hux had to reach very far back to find them again. How long had it been since he had last seen the planet? 

“Monuments, yes, to warn people where old ghosts walk,” Hux said, the edges of his voice softening further as he drifted closer to sleep. 

“So what ghost is this a monument to?” Ren asked, pressing his face into the nape of Hux’s neck, against the sweat-damp hair where it was clipped short and neat. 

The words only came several minutes later, when both Hux and Ren were on the edge of sleep. “She told me she loved me. And then she let Brendol take me.” 

Hux said no more. And Ren, tasting the pain that lingered still in Hux’s mind, that left bitter bruises pressed into his soul, knew better than to ask for more. 

“We’re not so different after all, General,” Ren whispered in an attempt to be reassuring. Hux only squirmed closer to him, and Ren tightened his grip on Hux for a few seconds, unsure of what else to do, before he let himself drift off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> PS: Sharp-eyed readers may notice that I didn't write Hux taking off the dagger strapped to his forearm. That omission was intentional. He was wearing it the whole time. You're welcome.


End file.
